Antiviral activity of porcine interferon omega 7 against foot-and-mouth disease virus in vitro.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a disease of worldwide economic importance， and vaccines play an important role in preventing FMDV outbreaks. However， new control strategies are still needed since FMDV outbreaks still occur in some disease-free countries. Currently， interferon (IFN)-based strategies have been demonstrated to be an efficient biotherapeutic option against FMDV; however， interferon omega (IFN-ω) has not yet been assessed in this capacity. Thus， this study evaluated the antiviral activity of porcine IFN omega 7 (PoIFN-ω7) against FMDV. After the PoIFN-ω7 was expressed and purified， cell proliferation assays and RT-qPCR were used to evaluate the effective anti-cytopathic concentration of PoIFN-ω7 and its effectiveness pre- and post-infection with FMDV in swine kidney cells (IBRS-2). Results showed the rHis-PoIFN-ω7 fusion protein was considerably expressed using Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) strain， and the recombinant protein exhibited significant in vitro protection against FMDV， including two strains belonging to type O and A FMDV， respectively. In addition， PoIFN-ω7 unregulated the transcription of Mx1， ISG15， OAS1， and PKR genes. These findings indicated that IFN-ω has potential for serving as a useful therapeutic agent to prevent FMDV or other viral outbreaks in pigs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.